Three days before Christmas my husband got a phone call. Now phone calls at an inn are not unusual. On the contrary, they’re a necessary evil that goes with the territory. From 6 a.m. till midnight, (and even well beyond) our phones ring. A LOT.  (There could be worse things, however … like NO calls, right?! I’m not complaining!) But I like to tease my husband that his cell phone gets even more calls than our business does. He gets so many that I picture him with the thing permanently affixed to his right hand or growing out of his ear. He denies this vehemently … (although usually while reaching for his ringing phone).

I try to add a bit of levity here because I need to … because on December 22, one of the calls he got that day was ‘different’ from all the rest. All of a sudden Dana got very serious.  I heard snatches of the conversation, but didn’t think anything of it, things such as “Islands” … “Clothes” … “Boats” …   He started writing things down and taking copious notes as he listened; then he left the room to continue the conversation in the other room. Frankly, I was busy baking pies and cookies, wrapped up in my own little world, thinking about my grown children who would be soon arriving for Christmas. I wasn’t paying much attention to phone calls. So I went about my business in my beautiful MaryJane apron and forgot all about it. But life was very much about to change for us with that call.  My husband Dana came back in with a ghastly, shell-shocked look on his face.  “That was Whitney on the phone,” he said.

                                    Our Friend Whitney                         His son Prescott

A little background: Whitney is the dearest, truest-bluest friend we’ve got.  Dana went to college with him, and he is one of the only persons on earth I can think of who would be on our doorstep in a flash – in good times or bad – if we ever needed him. He has a strong moral compass, and would do anything we asked of him.  He has proved this in so many ways over the years, and his friendship is like gold to us. His only child Prescott, is also a special friend to each of our four kids, and has been more like a ‘member of the family’ than ‘friend’ since he was born. We’ve all taken many adventures together over the years and stored up special memories.

Whitney                            Dana (in green) and College Buddies

But one of the nice things about friendship is that it’s a reciprocal thing, isn’t it? We’ve tried to be there for Whitney, too, and his life hasn’t been an easy one the last few years. He recently beat a particularly virile form of melanoma and currently has a clean bill of health. It was a difficult and scary time for him as he navigated through the frightening and often confusing medical world of cancer. Sadly, he is also going through a painful divorce from his wife (also our friend) of 30+ years, and is having to sell his amazing dream home he built on the water. It has been a perfect storm … the convergence of hard times for this amazingly resilient man. But apparently it was he who had just called Dana, and the tone of the conversation suddenly seemed ominous. There was no easy way to say it, so my husband just cut to the chase.

“Whitney is pretty sure that Prescott is dead.”

This is going to sound overly dramatic, I know, but the words hit me like a physical assault.  I was speechless. I’ve seen movies in which the actor or actress is asked, “Are you sitting down? I have some bad news…” but I had never actually received a shock like this in real life.  I guess the ‘sitting down’ thing is good advice to keep in mind if you’re ever in such a situation, because strangely, seconds later, just when the impact of what had been said actually sunk into my brain, my knees buckled.  They literally folded like an accordion and couldn’t support me.  I just sat in a crumpled heap on my kitchen floor, mouth gaping, waiting to hear some details as tears began to flood my eyes. A million questions flashed through my mind. I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. This couldn’t be real.

If you live in New England and watch the news (which I never do except in this instance), you would have heard about this strange case.  It was plastered from CNN to NBC; and in the Boston Globe to newspapers in faraway England all throughout the holiday. Prescott and his friend, Zachary, had been at a party on that Wednesday night, right before their semester at school ended.  They were each planning to go to their respective homes for the holiday at the end of the week.  But they never returned to their own apartments, or to school, let alone to their parent’s homes. Although their cell phones and wallets were found at Zach’s house, as well as Zach’s vehicle, they were never seen nor heard from again.  

Prescott was only 23 years old.  He grew up in Barnstable on Cape Cod, and lived for the water. Like his dad, he was a sailor practically since the day he was born. Prescott had his own business, Wright Marine Specialty; and had graduated from the Landing School, a boat building school in Kennebunkport, Maine. He had returned this year to further his studies in yacht design, and was planning to continue it even further at the ‘mother’ school next year over in England. Prescott had restored his own classic sailboat, and had even sailed it to our cottage last fall on the coast of Maine, where he and our kids won first place in a sailing regatta. How could someone with such promise, so full of life, with the  whole world before him just simply “vanish”, as all the news stories reported? It seemed impossible.

The first thing that I thought of was Tom Sawyer, a book my son Joshua and I are currently reading out loud together. “Maybe it’s a prank,” I suggested. “You know, like staging their own death or something.” I had to admit, it didn’t seem a likely prank to pull before Christmas, and it was totally and completely out of character for our friend Prescott … but it beat the alternative.

Dana continued, “Whitney thinks they went out in one or two boats in the middle of the night on the ocean.”  They had apparently been drinking and not thinking clearly, and were up for an adventure. They had been overheard as saying something to this effect. When they didn’t return home after the party, or to school the next day, their friends and roommates reported this to school officials, who called the police and an investigation ensued. It was called one of the ‘strangest disappearances’ they had ever seen.  For two days a land, sea and air search, with planes, boats with sonar, and divers turned up nothing, until the search had to be suspended by storms. When it resumed, their clothes and life-jackets were found on a nearby island, but no sign of the boys. It was thought that they had been out in boats (one empty kayak, belonging to a friend of Prescott’s), had washed down wind into a tributary and was found a few days later, but no other signs of the boys were discovered.

 Perhaps they were kayaking, overturned in the sudden nor’easter that blew in that night, and somehow made it to this island. Taking off their wet clothes, and fighting hypothermia in the bitter temperatures, time would have been of the essence. They might have been trying to swim unencumbered by wet apparel. It was a relatively short distance of 100 yards to another nearby island with a lighthouse, where it was well-known to sailors that emergency rescue radios were kept. Perhaps some combination of fierce weather, rough seas, exhaustion, inebriation and hypothermia prevented their ever making it there. It still remains a mystery, but there is some evidence pointing to the fact that they were swept out and lost at sea. Days later, all hope vanished. With a week of bitter cold, storms, no clothes or food, there was no chance of survival, and eventually even recover efforts were suspended. They were gone.

The weeks after this were a blur, I slept poorly, often waking in the middle of the night, hoping it was all a bad dream.  Grief has definite stages, and it works its own way through them without any help from us. First comes the Shock, then Disbelief and Denial. It is replaced by hope.  Intense hope. “They WILL turn up, I know it … and it will be a Christmas Miracle!! This will be one for the storybooks, when Prescott tells us of this latest adventure that had us all so worried!”  Then comes the realization: He’s not coming back, and grief becomes a constant companion. Those things hit me first, and they were very strong.  Our whole family was and grief-stricken. We tried valiantly to rouse ourselves for Christmas; we all put on a good front, but we were mourning.  Many days later it was (for me at least), surprisingly followed by anger. “How could you be so stupid? You KNOW better than this … you ARE better than this!  How DARE you be so careless with your beautiful, precious young life?” And then this was followed by such a sadness, I can’t describe it.  Sadness for a life full of hope and promise cut too terribly short. Sadness for our own family and the personal loss it would bring.  Intense sadness for our friends who had just lost their only child. There was even more sadness as I considered what I would do if I ever lost one of my own children. How would I ever be able to cope? Would I ever be able to cope? And then one day, finally, a numbing acceptance settled over me, with the realization that ‘Our friend is gone.’ He was an amazing young man and I will never forget him.

Life intercedes and forces us who are still living to pick up one foot in front of the other and somehow soldier on. In the weeks that followed, there were two Celebrations of Prescott’s life; one on Cape Cod where he had lived; one on the coast of Maine to help bring closure to his schoolmates and many friends. We attended both, which were amazingly moving tributes, and both highly emotional.  We stayed at the home of Prescott’s father, our dear friend Whitney, offering what support we could.  What can one say in such a situation?  The answer is Nothing … There are no words.  There isn’t a thing anyone can say or do to help or to lessen the pain.  But we were there, unconditionally, as friends. It was both one of the most heart-wrenching, tragic experiences our family has ever encountered, and oddly, also the most precious, most memorable event of our lives. It was an example of how love and friendship can get people through such devastating and unimaginable loss together. In death as in life, the bonds of true friendship are immutable.

This tragedy has changed my life,  not only for the personal loss we all feel as we miss our special friend Prescott Wright. Throughout the past month I have learned so many life lessons from this event, and because of it, I count this young man (not much more than a boy, really) to be one of my most influential teachers. Although I knew it intellectually before, I have now experienced and understand that:
• Life is a gift, not only to ourselves, but to others as well.  We don’t ask for it, we are just blessed with it. Such is the grace of God.
• Life is precious, fragile, and unfortunately, all too fleeting.
• Our lives touch untold others in ways we can’t possibly imagine. Our loss brings unimaginable pain to those who love us.
• Our actions have consequences. We are not invincible. While living life ‘on the edge’ and ‘pushing the envelope’ to the fullest are admirable qualities, taking foolish risks can have devastating consequences. We reap what we sow, and while we don’t want to live fearfully, we should live deliberately and aware of how our actions may affect us and those who love us.
• Live life to the fullest, and make every moment count. We have no guarantees. As my old friend Thoreau says, “I wished to live life deliberately … to suck out all the marrow of life … and not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
• If we have an addiction or a problem that is getting the better of us, address it and get help. 

Whitney said it best to Prescott’s friends at his memorial service: “The reason for Prescott’s death is clear to me. The ocean did not kill him, alcohol did. I have been sick enough to lose my fear of death. One of the big motivators in my successful battle against melanoma was not the fear of dying, I wanted to avoid the horrible pain of those who I would leave behind. This is the meaning of Prescott’s death. This is a notice to everyone to look at yourself. Perhaps you are like so many people who can have a couple of drinks and have some fun and stay under control, but perhaps you are like me and you can not drink in safety. It is easy to die. It is much harder to lose someone who you love. Don’t make the people who love you go through what I am going through. Seek help.”
I’ll end with a story told by one of Prescott’s friends, which I read in a scrapbook that friends made for his parents in his memory. It represents the fun spirit of adventure he had. Although he “lived large, was imminently competent and had big dreams,  he never lost his ability to appreciate the  small things, the things that really matter in life. This is one of my favorite entries from the scrapbook:  “While driving up to the Isle of Skye on Prescott’s trip to visit me in Scotland, we passed a forest where all but one tree was felled. This tree was bare but it was old and beautiful. With so many branches interlaced, this tree stood in the foreground, the most beautiful landscape imaginable. Behind the tree were both mountains and ocean, only to be divided by a large cliff.  This tree was awesome. Prescott in the moment turned to me saying, “How about that tree? That is so rad. Let’s remember that tree forever.” It was just sort of a joke, but always taken seriously. Hours later in a pub: “Hey, remember that tree?”  Days later: “Hey, remember that tree?” We would call and text each other just with that one line.  We planned on always remembering that tree for all our lives. Though this is silly, that tree provided an immediate portal back to Scotland, where we shared many memories and many laughs. That small phrase reminded us of those simply fun times. Much of me is sad that those calls and texts have ceased, but the truth is that I won’t ever forget that tree, and when I think of it all I can do is smile for the spirit of Prescott will live on forever.” –A.L.
And so, my friends, be sure to find your trees every day, whatever they are, wherever you may find them. I thank you for indulging me in this; I needed to get it off my Farmgirl chest. Sharing each other’s burdens doesn’t lessen the pain, but it somehow makes them  more bearable. Thank you, with love and hugs from Cathi,

The Mountain Farmgirl